Industry 4.0 - Explanation and definition of the Industry 4.0

What is Industry 4.0



Industry 4.0 refers to the fourth industrial revolution based on the evolution of the traditional factories into a smart factories in which all human, material and energy resources are interconnected and optimized, adapting at all moment to the economic market environment and the needs of customers.

The term Industry 4.0 was coined in 2011 by a group of scientists and engineers working on the project promoted by the German government aimed to promote and implement the full digitization of production systems.

Industry 4.0 has the main objective to the use of the advantages of current technologies for large-scale production, adapting each product and service to complete customization of each client, fully optimizing production processes achieving operational excellence and ensuring at all times the quality and satisfaction. Can you imagine a factory where thousands of sensors monitor the processes and all the tools, machines and robots were connected with each other to work under instructions from a central computer?

Any industrial revolution arises as a result of scientific and technological advances of the time, so the first industrial revolution took place through the use of steam engines in production systems introduced by substituting for the first time in the industry's manpower by machines . It also allowed the expansion of rail transport materials and products throughout all countries.

The second industrial revolution based its development on the use of new energy sources such as oil, gas or electricity. On the other hand the introduction of the assembly line and mass production accompanied by new means of transport and communication as the airplane, the automobile or the telephone.

The third industrial revolution was accompanied by the use of computers, microprocessors and Internet, which allowed many automate and monitor production processes thanks to technologies such as PLCs or PIDs.

So the fourth industrial revolution or industry 4.0 is based on the latest emerging technologies that are being implemented in stages in the industries, technologies such as the Internet of Things, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Lifi, RFID, 3D printing, virtual assistants, quantum computing, artificial intelligence ...

All these and other technologies will make up the full interconnection of any production center enabling optimum take any decision in just a split second under the management of a central computer.

Principles of Industry 4.0



The development of industry 4.0 is based on the following four principles:

Interconnection - Industry 4.0 will interconnect all devices, tools and machines, also we can extract, share and analyze information in real time both in the internal processes of the industry and externally with the opinion of customers and the market situation. Such interconnection will fostered by the development of technologies such as the Internet of things, advanced communication systems as Lifi...

Autonomy - Industry 4.0 both products, machines and robots involved in the production processes have the ability to self-configure, self-diagnose and self-optimizes to adapt in seconds to the required production needs of the moment. Technologies such as Big Data and Artificial Intelligence will be used for implementing the principle of full autonomy.

Information Management - Technology acquisition and processing of information as Big Data, RFID and Internet of things will be needed to manage the vast amounts of information originating from any production process, allowing analyze and optimize at all times any decision making .

Security - Industry 4.0 will develop new safety systems that prevent access to information and management of production systems by anyone external of the company. The use of quantum computing will develop a key role in this principle.

Throughout history we have been able to confirm that any industrial revolution is accompanied by economic and social changes, the emerging industry 4.0 will certainly bring new changes in our lifestyle completely changing today's workplace and empowering throughout the world the phenomenon of globalization.